UPDATE: We can't believe this has become the center of so much attention but Takeru Kobayashi, arrested at Nathan's July Fourth hot dog-eating contest, was freed Monday after a night in jail, looking tired and saying he was hungry.
He was wearing the black T-shirt with the message "Free Kobi" in green letters, was freed by a Brooklyn judge after he pleaded not guilty. The 32-year-old said he consumed only a sandwich and some milk in jail.
Even though a contract dispute had kept Kobayashi out of Sunday's annual Nathan's Famous International Hot Dog Eating Contest, but he showed up anyway.
"I was there as a spectator, just to cheer on my buddies," he said through an interpreter outside court Monday. Fans chanted for him, and "in the heat of it, I jumped on the stage, hoping they would let me eat."
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Japanese competitive eater Takeru "Tsunami" Kobayashi was arrested on Sunday at Nathan's hot dog contest in New York. "He was taken in custody for disrupting the Nathan's hot dog eating contest," a New York Police Department spokeswoman said.
Takeru Kobayashi was arrested Sunday after storming the stage at the annual Coney Island competition.
Kobayashi did not take part in this year's event because of contract disputes with the sport's governing body, Major League Eating, but he was there and watched from the audience.
After Joyey Chestnut won and was crowned winner, Kobayashi jumped on stage and was grabbed by police officers.
Witnesses say he tried to hold onto the barricades as police took him into custody.
"I'm standing right there and then somebody in a 'Free Kobayashi' t-shirt runs up onto the stage and I notice that it's actually Kobayashi, he leans down and shakes someone's hand, and the cop comes up from behind and grabs him and starts dragging him off, and he doesn't want to go so he's grabbing onto the rail, then two other cops come and they try to pull him off the rail and he's struggling, and then everybody starts chanting 'Let him eat! Let him eat! Let him eat!' And then they just took him away," said one witness.
Earlier in the week the 32-year-old told Japan's Kyodo News that he still hoped to take part in the competition, because "holds a very special place in my heart."
But he objected to an exclusivity clause stipulated by the organizer that would have prevented him from participating in future competitive eating events without its permission.
"If he was a real man he would be on the stage," Chestnut said after inhaling 54 dogs.
The Nathan's hot dog eating contest requires contestants to eat as many hot dogs, buns included, in 10 minutes without vomiting.
